The passage leading to the third phase trembled with divine energy.Sam and Alana, bruised and breathing hard, stood before the towering archway inscribed with ancient glyphs. Blue and gold light danced across the stone, forming the threshold to the Final Phase the Trial of the Devil's Fear.
A hush lingered in the air as the last of the monsters fell behind them. Dust settled. The two glanced at each other warriors forced into alliance, their rivalry momentarily buried beneath survival.
Sam broke the silence first.
"We made it… barely."
Alana crossed her arms, her silver hair clinging to her sweat-slick cheek.
"Don't think I'm thanking you, commoner. I'd have made it without you."
Sam smirked faintly. "Sure you would've. Right after those shadow hounds tore you in half."
A glare flashed in her blue eyes, but before she could retort
The air cracked.
A sharp 裂! echoed through the chamber, splitting reality itself.
"W–what's that sound!?" Alana gasped, stepping back.
Sam turned, his senses flaring. The very air around them rippled like water struck by a stone. Then from the distortion black hands burst forth, clawed and dripping with violet smoke.
Their fingers were long, jointed wrong, twisting and writhing like serpents.
Alana screamed as one hand seized her ankle.
"S–Sam!"
"Hold on!" Sam lunged forward, light magic flaring from his palm Lumen Strike! slashing through one hand, but three more burst out to grab her waist and shoulders.
Before Sam could react, she was yanked toward the expanding rift, her body half-vanished in the distortion.
"No! Let her go!"
Sam grabbed her arm just as she was about to disappear. The force pulled him forward wind roared, reality twisted and in the next instant, both were consumed by the rift.
Sam groaned, feeling cold dust beneath his fingertips. When his eyes opened, the world had changed.
The sky above was crimson-grey, split by black lightning that crawled across the clouds like veins. The air smelled of rust and decay.
Around him stretched an endless wasteland littered with corpses skeletal remains of knights, demons, and beasts.Their armor, rusted beyond age, still bore faint glimmers of ancient runes.
Sam stood, his breathing uneven.
"What is this place…?"
Each step he took crunched over bones. The air was heavy, pressing against his chest.
He called out, voice echoing.
"Alana! Alana, where are you!?"
No reply. Only the hollow moan of wind passing through broken structures.
In the distance, he saw it a fortress, jagged and crooked, built from black stone that seemed to absorb light. The towers leaned like broken teeth, and the gates hung open, inviting and dreadful.
Sam clenched his fists.
"She must be there…"
His instincts screamed danger, yet he moved forward. His boots left faint trails of gold as his light magic shimmered with each step faint, but enough to push back the suffocating gloom.
Inside the Fortress
The massive gate creaked open with a whisper of ash. Inside, the air was colder — thick with the scent of old death and forgotten sins.
The walls were carved with runes long faded, and the corridors twisted like a maze. At the end of one hall, flickering torches lit themselves, casting long, dancing shadows.
Sam's light pulsed brighter. The Lumen Shield shimmered around him as he stepped cautiously forward.
Then, A scraping noise.A low hiss.
From the cracks in the ceiling, the hands emerged again. Dozens this time. Hundreds. Their black forms poured like liquid shadow, crawling across walls and ceiling.
"You again…"
Sam gritted his teeth and thrust his palm forward.
"Lumen Barrier!"
A dome of radiant light expanded, stopping the first wave of claws that lunged toward him. The hands recoiled, hissing as the holy light seared them.
But then something strange happened the glow of his magic seemed to anger them. Their shapes twisted violently, growing longer, sharper. The fortress itself trembled as if in pain.
The light that should have repelled darkness now provoked it.
"Why… why are they reacting like this!?"
The barrier cracked under pressure. The hands slammed repeatedly, shrieking soundlessly.
Sam gritted his teeth, sweat dripping from his chin. His light was flickering.
Then amid the chaos a voice echoed through his mind.Soft. Feminine. Ethereal.
"Use your true power, Sam…"
He froze.The voice was gentle, familiar, and yet distant like a memory from a dream.
"Who's there!?" he shouted, but no one answered. Only the echo of that whisper lingered.
The hands broke through his barrier. Claws slashed his shoulder another grazed his cheek. Blood splattered across the dusty floor.
"Damn it…" Sam gasped, falling to one knee. "If light won't work…"
He hesitated only for a moment fear flickering in his chest. He had promised himself never to use it again. Never to release that power.
But the whisper came again, softer this time almost pleading.
"Your light cannot save you here. Only your truth can."
Sam closed his eyes, clenched his fist and let go.
A shockwave rippled outward. The torches extinguished.
The fortress darkened then filled with a pulse of shadow.
From Sam's chest, black markings spread across his skin, glowing faintly violet. His eyes, once gold, turned crimson.
"I didn't want to use this…"
The shadows recoiled. The air quaked.
When Sam raised his hand, the darkness bent toward him like an obedient servant.
"Dark Slash."
A blade of black energy erupted, cutting through the air slicing the monstrous hands to ash. The fortress walls cracked under the force.
The wails of the vanishing shadows echoed like dying storms.
In moments, the room fell silent again. Only the faint hum of residual magic lingered.
Sam stood in the center, chest heaving, eyes still glowing faintly red.
"I… lost control again…"
He looked at his trembling hands. The darkness felt alive hungry. Yet, within it, he sensed recognition. The power didn't hate him. It belonged to him.
But he didn't have time to think. He needed to find Alana.
Outside the Rift
In the Academy's Grand Hall, chaos erupted.
The scrying crystals had turned black. The once-bright projections now pulsed with faint violet sigils unknown and ancient.
Students screamed. Professors tried to restore the connection, but the rift radiated unstable energy that shattered their spells.
Lucy stood in the front row, trembling.
"What's happening inside!? Someone do something!"
Professor Irus clenched his jaw. "The resonance is unstable… this magic it's forbidden! No one should be able to open a dimensional gate inside the Academy!"
The ground beneath the viewing platform vibrated. Magical alarms blared.
Then the Headmaster appeared.
Old, tall, his cloak flowing like liquid night. His eyes, usually calm, were grave.
"Enough!"
His voice boomed through the hall. The alarms ceased instantly.
"Irus! May! Form the containment barrier. Now."
The two professors looked stunned.
"Containment barrier!? But that means","No one can come out," Irus finished, pale-faced.
Lucy turned sharply.
"What!? You can't...! Sam and Alana are still inside!"
The Headmaster's gaze turned cold. "You will obey. Now."
The professors exchanged reluctant glances and began tracing runes in the air. Magical circles formed around the massive stone doors leading to the relic zone.
Within moments, a dome of golden and silver light enveloped the entrance. The air shimmered as reality itself thickened a seal of ancient power.
The crowd erupted in protest.
"Why would the Headmaster lock them in!?""Isn't he supposed to save them!?"
Lucy ran to the front, eyes wide with disbelief.
"Headmaster! Please tell me! Why are you doing this!? Sam could die in there!"
The old man turned to her, his voice quiet but heavy.
"Child… you do not understand what lies beyond that door. If they have been pulled into that place, there is no saving them."
His words struck her like a dagger.
"That place…?"
He didn't answer. His gaze drifted toward the sealed entrance, his expression unreadable a shadow of old pain crossing his face.
"Seal it stronger," he murmured. "Nothing from that realm must come through. Not again."
As the barrier solidified, whispers spread among the professors.
"Could it be… that realm?""The one from the old archives? But that's just a myth…""The Shadow Plane— the battlefield where gods and demons vanished"
Lucy overheard bits and pieces. Her heart pounded harder.She looked up at the Headmaster, her voice trembling.
"Headmaster… what is hidden inside that place? What are you not telling us?"
The old man's hand tightened around his staff. For a long moment, he said nothing. His eyes, reflecting the glowing barrier, seemed lost in memory — of something ancient, terrible.
Finally, in a whisper only he could hear, he said
"So it begins again… That Death Worlds is again going to take more innocent life."
Lucy caught only fragments. "Gate… of shadows?"
The Headmaster turned away, his cloak sweeping across the floor.
"No one enters. No one leaves. Not until the light itself decides."
And with that, he vanished into the dim corridors of the Academy, leaving behind a hall filled with confusion, fear and one girl's growing dread for the boy trapped beyond the veil.